


(and it's harder than you think,) telling dreams from one another

by thesarosperiod



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Death, Dreams, Gen, Hurt, I think that's about it, My First AO3 Post, My First Work in This Fandom, Short, Wakes & Funerals, and also, only rated teen because of all the discussion of death, so please be kind, surprise it's jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22884994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesarosperiod/pseuds/thesarosperiod
Summary: This is an end without resolution, but they've run out of pages to fill.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	(and it's harder than you think,) telling dreams from one another

There is a story, and it ends like this:

There is a boy, in a warehouse, in a place he should never have been. He’s not alone, and yet he is, because he’s fading, faltering, dissolving into static even as he struggles to stay present, to find some way to freedom. All he wants to do is fly out of there like a bird ( _like a_ _robin_ , he thinks, finding it funny, and laughing until his ribs twinge again and he has to stop) but it’s no use hoping. He is trapped as surely as if he were in an iron-wrought cage. He doesn’t want to be afraid, but it isn’t much use. He is so, so tired, but he keeps fighting, because he knows what lies beyond. He can feel it coming like a rainstorm in the air. He knows.

But he is running out of time. The boy is dying and exhausted and bitter, slumping backward into the dust. He can’t breathe, and for a moment he panics before he sets his jaw and lets the alarm slide away. The boy is smart, and hardened, and he understands what will happen. He’s slipping, fast, and in so much pain. Still, he fights it, does his best to keep his lungs working for what meager time he can. He watches the red numbers in the edge of his vision moving on a countdown, _fourthreetwo_ , then closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see it. This isn’t how this is supposed to end.

And he’s right. But the timer doesn’t know that.

He has cloaked himself in the folds of red and green and yellow, and been carried under the protection of black terror in the night, but none of those things can save him now.

There is a boy in a coffin, and he’s sleeping. _He’s only sleeping_ , his father thinks. Reminds himself, because anything else would be too much for him to stand. He was too slow. He killed this boy. It is his fault his son isn’t breathing-

But he’s not dead. Only sleeping.

The father watches as they lower the casket into the ground. His palm feels empty, far too empty. The boy under the dirt used to hold his hand, just for a brief moment, whenever they worked murder cases and the bodies that turned up were far, far too young. He aches from the absence. He knows just what his son would have said now to make him feel better. He wonders how long he will sleep for. Hopefully, it won’t be long. He misses him. He hopes he has good dreams. His son used to have such horrible nightmares-

His child sleeps, like a moth in a cocoon, and the father will just have to wait.

There is a grandfather, standing by the father’s side. He is old and weathered, but strong, an oak in a forest full of willow trees. He keeps the father company and he cries. The grandfather is sturdy, but this is unthinkable. _Lord, grant me the serenity-_

It’s no use. He knows he ran out of serenity long ago.

His son, beside him is not crying. He thinks he understands why. He knows if he were to start, he might break down. And the press is here. Appearances. The bloody press, here at his grandson’s funeral. _I truly have no grace left._ He feels no regret, only grim acceptance. He is done accepting whatever tragedy comes his way.

The ceremony ends and the grandfather drives the father home. They both say nothing the whole time, looking out the windows. It is ridiculously nice day outside, the grandfather thinks. Far too beautiful for a boy in a casket in the ground. A new wave of tears rises and the grandfather lets them fall, keeps watching the road outside. He will enjoy the day in his grandson’s memory. That, at least, he can do.

They reach the house, far too empty for both of their tastes. The eldest child is far-flung and distant, never at home. The second child-

The grandfather isn’t quite ready to consider that.

The father trudges upstairs, and after a moment’s hesitation, the grandfather follows. He knows where his son will go and he knows what will happen when he gets there. Sure enough, the father pauses at the doorway to his son’s room. They look inside, to the neatly made bed and the backpack slung messily over the desk chair like he’d just gotten home from school. To the copy of Hamlet, still open and bookmarked on his nightstand (and Lord, how it stings, a tragedy interrupted by a tragedy), and the grandfather remembers scolding the boy for his language and watching the child stick out his tongue and grin _words, words, words, Alfie-_

His son crumples to the ground, sobbing, struck by grief and memory, and his father holds him. The world is still, silent.

This is an end without resolution, but they've run out of pages to fill.

There is an interlude, and it goes like this:

There is a boy in a coffin, deep underground, and he's dreaming. He’s not sleeping, yet he is. He shouldn't have died, yet it happened. He’s a contradiction in the strangest of ways, and he dreams. He dreams about his namesake, the first Jason- Jason of Iolcos, the leader of the Argonauts, retriever of the golden fleece. In his dreams, he is Jason, and he stands on the salty, weather-beaten deck as his powerful ship cuts through the endless waves. He hears lyre music and smells sea breeze, and all around him he feels the companionship of a ragged, tightly-knit crew. They are warriors, driven together by necessity and kept together by shared woe and trust and a thousand other things, a patchwork quilt of a people.

It’s all perfect until it’s not. Soon, there’s a woman at his side who fills him with unease, he doesn’t trust her, and there’s blood on his hands, spattered and staining, and soon his friends, his family start disappearing one by one. Dead or gone or abandoned him, and there’s childlike bodies at his feet and they aren’t moving, and then-

And then he’s alone. So alone in dusty, dingy dark, surrounded by wooden planks and the crash of water, until it starts all over again.

It’s dreadfully prophetic, but how could he know? He’s just a boy in a box in the dirt, dreaming in loops that run in tandem with his father’s anguish, his grandfather’s steady sadness. He’s just a boy, after all, waiting to wake up.

Waiting for the page to turn.

**Author's Note:**

> so uh... hi! if you've made it all the way down here i'm assuming you read the whole work, so thanks! it really means a lot. 
> 
> comments and kudos give me an Alfred Hug (because i think we could all use one of those). chat with me on tumblr @thesarosperiod. see you later!


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